In Gabon, faux news draws real censorship

Last week, Gabon's
government-controlled National Communications Council ordered the TV station of
opposition leader André Mba Obame off
the air for a period of three months. The ruling is without appeal and,
typically, this is how authorities in this oil-rich equatorial African state silence
critical news outlets. Except that, this time, the "reporting"
for which the TV station was forced off the air was not about a real event but
rather the staging of a faux presidential swearing-in
ceremony.

The story goes that
Obame, once an interior minister in the government of Omar Bongo Ondimba, who
died in June 2009 after 40+ years in power, challenged Bongo's son Ali in August 2009 presidential elections.
Both men led a field of candidates by deploying their media assets to back
their campaign: Bongo with the state media and Obame with TV+ and Radio
Nostalgie. It was the most contested election
in Gabon's history, but on Election Day TV+ suddenly went to static,
unidentified gunmen fired on its transmitters, and security forces blocked
access to its broadcast site. Until late 2009, the station claimedits broadcast radius had been reduced
from nationwide to a small area around the capital. Meanwhile, Gabon's
Constitutional Court had declared Bongo the winner of the election, and Obame's
court challenges were rejected.

Nonetheless, on January
25, more than 15 months after the voting, Obame renewed the electoral dispute
by staging a swearing-in ceremony and declaring
himself president of Gabon. He also named
a 19-member parallel government. His station, TV+, "covered" the event. In
response, the ruling Gabonese Democratic Party called Obame's swearing-in
"absurd and backward," according news
reports. Authorities dissolved
his National Union party, leading to street protests
by Obame's supporters. Obame sought refuge in the
offices of the U.N. Development Programme's offices
in the capital Libreville.

News outlets, including the
government-controlled public broadcaster RTG, later aired excerpts of the
event, which was also reported in private newspapers, according to local
journalists, but the National Communications Council ruled that TV+'s
coverage was intended "to undermine public order," according to news reports.

Mohamed Keita is advocacy coordinator for CPJ's Africa Program. Keita has written about independent journalism and development in sub-Saharan Africa for publications including The New York Times and Africa Review, and has appeared on NPR, the BBC, Al-Jazeera, and Radio France Internationale. Keita has also given presentations on press freedom at the World Bank, U.S. State Department, and universities. Follow him on Twitter: @africamedia_CPJ.

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